


Counterpart

by weirdrobot



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Falling In Love, Loneliness, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27281134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weirdrobot/pseuds/weirdrobot
Summary: C-3PO wonders about the little droid he met one day on Tatooine, the one that left him with all the feelings a droid isn't supposed to feel.
Relationships: C-3PO/R2-D2 (Star Wars)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Counterpart

C-3PO missed his friend.

Their time together was fleeting, insignificant to most. But not to him.

Threepio, although thankful for the care of his young master and his mother, ultimately lived quite a lonely life when the small astromech rolled his way into their modest house.

Tatooine was by no means a very welcoming place for a droid, and not for one in such a state of completion.

Or lack thereof.

Truly, it wasn't really like droids to desire social interaction or feel its effects; for a protocol droid like himself, socialisation was simply one of his functions. It wasn't a need he felt himself having _before_. But after meeting the little droid and having bid him farewell as went on to greater things, it was then he realised he felt something lacking.

He hadn't really thought about the world beyond until he spoke with Artoo. His world never extended far beyond a little house in the desert, in a dirty town filled with dirty people. But the astromech told him tales of the far ends of the galaxy; of space, of royalty, of danger and destruction. Strange for a droid to feel even more insignificant in this galaxy.

But Artoo never felt insignificant, so he said. Artoo could look danger in the eye and still do his duty, and come back in one piece ready to do it all over again. It certainly wasn't the kind of life for Threepio, that was for sure. But he liked to hear his stories, however exaggerated they were. They were proof of there being something more. A world much bigger than him. A world with room for droids to be more than he was.

The astromech teased him and he swore he wasn't a coward. Maybe he was right.

When the little droid went away with the Jedi Knight and the young girl, his master went with them. He didn't give him the fondest of farewells but he supposed he had a lot on his mind. Their home was quiet after that. He and the boy's mother worried day and night about him, and found comfort in each other's company. He was never very good with emotion, but he felt valuable.

It was only after the emptiness had settled in that he realised something was missing in the first place.

Can a droid feel lonely?

As years passed the thought of the astromech whose path briefly crossed with his would always cross his mind, on a day when the sun felt especially warm and the podracers could be heard from the streets.

He missed his master, of course he did. But no matter how the boy loved him, it was the fellow droid whose loss touched him the most. In their short time together he could tell him all the things he could never tell his master, for he was only a child and some things are too complicated for a child to understand.

Artoo wasn't like the other droids he had met, the ones from Watto's shop that Anakin studied but never found as interesting as him. The pit droids were clumsy and careless, and not really the type for conversation. There was the odd fellow protocol droid, an astromech or two that would wander by without acknowledging he was even there.

Anakin made his mother swear never to wipe his memory. He knew the other droids on Tatooine weren't as lucky.

Maybe it wasn't lucky. So far it had only ever made life more complicated than it ever should have been for a droid.

But he was sure Artoo never thought of it that way. Despite the cynical remarks he exchanged and the rather scathing comments on his own appearance, Artoo was more of an optimist than he'd ever be. Always proud of his heroics, and stubborn enough to never let the organics take away his quirks.

That's what he said, anyway. As the years went by Threepio found himself wondering if the Artoo he had met was now nothing more than a memory. It was foolish to think their paths would ever cross again, and maybe even more so to think that he would even remember him, that he'd even be the same droid. Or that he even still roamed the galaxy.

Sometimes he wished to have even an ounce of Artoo's optimism.

Life changed when Shmi married Lars. She was the happiest he had seen her since before Anakin left on the day Cliegg freed her and brought her to their new home. Her new family was kind and warm and for the first time in years she began to smile again. But as their family grew he only began to feel more distant.

She had human companionship, she found love, a family. They were good to him and treated him well, but still he felt like they were never really _his_ family. He just had some other droids to work with on the farm. Not much for intellectual conversation, he quickly found.

He realised in his attempts to talk to them that what he felt - what he wanted - maybe just wasn't natural for a droid. It seemed no matter how many droids he met on Tatooine none of them could understand what he felt, none of them shared in his trouble. He wasn't sure any of them even particularly cared.

He felt lonelier than ever when the Tusken Raiders took Shmi and their home was never the same.

Nothing could have prepared him for the day his master returned. He questioned if droids could dream when he saw him again, hardly recognising him for how he'd grown. He proudly wore the outfit of a Jedi, just like the ones he'd described to him, on those long nights where he'd stay up late to work on putting Threepio together and whisper to him the legends of the Jedi. And by his side stood the girl that had so caught his young master's eye, now more beautiful than ever.

But the sight of the two together only made him wonder what happened to the little droid that left with them all those years ago on their journey to the stars.

He clung onto foolish hope, even as he watched the anger in his master's eyes, the sadness in Padmé's as Cliegg told them of what had happened to Shmi. The night was long and dark, save for the company of the young woman who dressed him in plating and treated him to a kindness he had long missed.

Padmé was so kind, even without reason. He was just a droid, after all. He had never felt such warmth and gratitude, and after so many years, he finally felt completed.

Well, at least physically. He couldn't quite find the courage to ask her about the astromech from so long ago.

The question didn't seem to matter anymore when Anakin brought home the body of his mother. The grief that followed was almost too much to bear. He never quite understood grief either, though he felt it as much as he saw it within everyone gathered outside the homestead as they said their goodbyes.

But then something new took over him, something that made his joints freeze and his circuits nearly stop.

An astromech droid whistled behind him. His pessimism nearly took over him, cursing himself for believing it could be true. But there he was.

It was like no time had passed at all. As he translated for Padmé, it was as if they had never been separated.

Just from the way he spoke, he knew.

Whatever he had just interpreted didn't seem important.

The humans scrambled around him in their urgency, and all too quickly he realised that his wish would be fulfilled only for a few seconds, and then it would be back to a life now more bleak than ever. And that maybe the other droid didn't even remember him. After all, why would a droid that's travelled to the other ends of the galaxy still remember just another protocol droid he met on a dark speck in the universe like Tatooine.

But Cliegg's son, Owen stopped Padmé as they began to leave. To thank her for her kindness, and to leave Anakin with a memory of his mother and a life once lived here, he offered the couple a gift. Something that was really Anakin's all along.

Threepio's expressionless face hid a joy like none he had felt before. The woman insisted she couldn't, but Owen knew it was for the best. They said their goodbyes, after a moment, and Threepio turned to the ship that lay glistening in the sun.

He hesitated there, remembering his fears. Maybe he didn't want to see the stars. He certainly didn't want to feel what it felt to be thrown around in one of those ships, to see the horrors of battle, to be lost in the black abyss or have this tiny life of his extinguished by one shot from a blaster to his frail circuits.

But there was Artoo beside him, bleeping at him to come. Telling him he thought he'd never see him again, in his own wry way.

"And you said they'd never get you on one of those," he teased.

He still remembered his words from all those years ago, and suddenly his anxieties didn't seem to matter anymore. He would face whatever came ahead, as long as Artoo was by his side.

He couldn't say he could ever have expected the events that followed. It was all he had feared and more: all the violence and battles and chaos that Artoo had described to him. But through it all, he never had to feel lonely or incomplete. He still felt out of place, but he wasn't sure how not to feel out of place on a battlefield or trapped in the endless maze of a droid factory. Besides, Artoo was out of place with him.

It wasn't either of their places to be on a battlefield, surrounded by Jedi and battle droids, a Sith Lord watching down on them all. But maybe it was their place to be together.

Artoo had told him he never fit in with other droids either. There was always something missing, little to be gained from conversation with the mind-wiped astromechs that never questioned an order, the protocol droids that never did anything but their duty and never felt a thing. He too had longed for something more. Even more than all the heroics one droid could find in the vastness of the galaxy.

From a glance, the two of them didn't seem like they had much in common. Artoo thought of Threepio as so fussy, and Threepio thought of him a reckless fool when he wanted to be. But they felt what the other droids didn't feel, thought the things they'd never think.

And in that way, they were perfectly matched.

Counterparts, that was the term that was used for pairs like them. It felt right.

As Threepio sat on the dry sand of the Geonosian arena and watched the ships leave, he decided he didn't care if all he ever saw for the rest of his life was fighting. It would be worth it, to do something that felt valuable, to be with humans that were kind, and to be with a droid that felt like home even here of all places.

It wasn't until a little while later that he realised what he had been feeling all along and thinking himself so strange for. He just wasn't sure until he saw it in front of his very eyes by the lake on Naboo.

It was love.

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little older I've been meaning to finish for a while for my favourite ship in existence. Thanks for reading!


End file.
